Menu Bar

Home           Calendar           Topics          Just Charlestown          About Us

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Rhode Island Community Food Bank launches summer food drive

Goal: 150,000 pounds of food this summer
By Will Colette

When school is out, the food safety net for many working families disappears. Without school lunch or breakfast programs, hard-pressed families have to figure out new ways to feed the kids on their own.

For many families where the breadwinners are out of work and out of benefits, there is no place left to turn but local food banks, such as Charlestown’s RI-CAN, the WARM Center, Jonnycake Center and local churches. 



They have all be reporting record increases in the number of families needing help as jobs remain scarce and unemployment benefits either expire or get cut.

For years, local anti-hunger groups have been backed up by the Rhode Island Food Bank which has turned the task of coming up with the large quantities of food needed to feed Rhode Island’s hungry into both an art and a science.

But during the summer months, people get distracted and donations can be spotty. For that reason, the Rhode Island Community Food Bank has teamed up with several local businesses to boost collections of food though its Summer Food Drive.

You can help both with financial donations and with donations of food. To find out what you can do to prevent hunger in Rhode Island this summer, click here. http://www.rifoodbank.org/DefaultPermissions/SummerFoodDrive/tabid/241/Default.aspx